Abstract
Sleep may play a role in overweight and obesity in adolescents. The objective of this study is to investigate the relationships between sleep duration and timing and overweight and obesity status in adolescents, with a special emphasis on weekday–weekend difference in sleep characteristics as well as sex-specific relationships. We examined 1,254 U.S. adolescents (12–17 years) self-reported sleep duration, timing, weekday–weekend differences in duration and timing in relation to overweight and obesity. We found an inverse association between sleep duration and overweight and obesity. Compared to 8–9 h of sleep, short sleep (< 7 h) on weekdays was associated with higher odds of overweight and obesity [Odds ratio (95% confidence interval), 1.73 (1.00, 2.97)] in the overall population, while long sleep (10+ h) on weekends was associated with lower odds, but only in males [0.56 (0.34, 0.92)]. We also found that a larger weekday–weekend difference in sleep duration was associated with overweight and obesity in females, but not in males. Specifically, the odds of overweight and obesity were significantly higher among females reporting longer sleep on weekends than weekdays by ≥ 2 h [2.31 (1.15, 4.63)] when compared to those reporting little weekday–weekend differences. Sleep timing, or weekday–weekend differences in sleep timing, were not associated with overweight and obesity in the overall population, although we found suggestive evidence linking later weekend sleep with overweight and obesity in females. Our findings support a role of sleep in adolescent obesity and suggest sex-differences in this relationship that warrant future studies.
Highlights
Adolescents who are overweight and obese are at a greater risk of developing a wide range of health conditions in adulthood, including high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes, certain types of cancer, kidney disease, and type II diabetes[1]
We found a significant trend between longer sleep and higher odds of overweight and obesity, but only in males (p-for-trend, 0.01)
Weekday–weekend midpoint difference was not significantly associated with being overweight/obese in the overall model or in sex-specific analysis (Table 5). In this large study of U.S adolescents, we found that sleep duration was inversely associated with overweight and obesity, but the associations appeared to be different for males and females, and for weekday and weekend sleep duration
Summary
Adolescents who are overweight and obese are at a greater risk of developing a wide range of health conditions in adulthood, including high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes, certain types of cancer, kidney disease, and type II diabetes[1]. Recent studies suggested that later sleep timing and propensity of eveningness may be associated with higher BMI8–12. This may be due to more severe misalignment between the internal circadian cycles and the behavioral sleep–wake cycles that are partially influenced by social and environmental factors such as school schedules and social o bligations[13,14]. In a group of ~ 1,200 US adolescents aged 12–17 years old, we examined the cross-sectional relationship between sleep duration and timing and overweight and obesity status, with a special emphasis on weekday–weekend difference in sleep characteristics as well as sex-specific relationships between sleep and BMI. Shorter sleep duration, later sleep timing, and greater weekday–weekend differences in sleep duration and timing would be associated with overweight and obesity in this population
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